Eyes of the Acheron
by Nightsmoke
Summary: A little snippet during the 'Jack the Ripper' arc. Nonromantic, though I suppose it could be seen as Madam Red/Sebastian if you squint- but that was not my intention at all. A little higher rating for mentions of violence and mild insanity.


A/N: This story came out of nowhere--I wasn't even thinking about writing when I sat down at the computer this evening. But, I just started typing... Kuroshitsuji is just so fun to write for! I don't care if anyone sees this, but if you do, please tell me what you think. Here's just a little Madam Red musing.

_Kuroshitsuji © Toboso Yana_

* * *

**Eyes of the Acheron**

_"I have not been allowed to see the general shape of Hell, but they tell me that just as Heaven has a human form, so Hell has the form of a demon."_

-Emanuel Swedenborg, 1758

It was strange to see an Asian man with red eyes.

That was the first thought that passed through Angelina Durless's mind when she met her nephew's butler for the first time. For almost two years, her little Ciel had dropped off the face of existence. She did not know where he had been, nor did she care. He was here now—although a little pallid, a little thin, a little quiet—and that was all that mattered. At his side stood a young man clad in housekeeper's attire, a man with dark hair and skin even paler than Ciel's.

The butler had a peculiar way about him; everything he did seemed…calculated, somehow. It was as if he was too perfect. Every action seemed to fit right in place, each word delivered as if by an actor with memorized lines.

Yet, there was something _off_ about him. She couldn't place it.

It was probably pointless to grasp at nonexistent straws, but the feeling that there was something wrong with Sebastian Michaelis never truly disappeared from her subconscious.

Angelina's love for the color red drew her to his eyes, which were certainly narrowed and almond-shaped like an Easterner's. She supposed it had something to do with that new theory of genetics, or whatever it was called. Those red eyes.

But then she had met another acquaintance of her nephew's, a man whose features were distinctly Chinese, and Angelina stopped to reconsider. True, Mr. Michaelis had the coal-black hair and saliently slanted features of the Orientals, but somehow he was different. His nose was slightly more aquiline, and his skin possessed no yellowish tint—rather, a bloodless white that bordered on an unhealthily pasty hue.

Angelina also noted that Sebastian's words rang with a polite British accent, even if his phrases were a bit antiquated in their fashion. There was no trace of a foreign accent in his sentences, unlike Lau's, who's British was mixed with a slight Chinese pronunciation.

So, she concluded, her nephew's butler couldn't have been Asian. Still, red eyes in anyone were extremely rare among people in general, excluding herself. Her irises were more of a claret-red, a mahogany hue that borderlined brown but not quite reaching it. A lot more subtle than Mr. Michaelis, who stared unblinkingly through eyes of a bright red. Angelina thought to herself, as a doctor, that they were the same color as blood that had just met the open air. Eyes like those belonged on face of some biblical beast, some mythological anathema such as the monster Acheron, or the Devil himself. However, these were just observations and curiosities of the amusedly bored, and Angelina soon put them behind her.

It was not until almost a year later that she finally understood.

* * *

"_Hmm," he remarked, hopping down from the sky and gazing with arrant nonchalance at the woman lying on the pavement. "I have to say, she looks a lot better in red."_

_Angelina was surprised at how calm she felt. Perhaps she would have been more unnerved if she was not doused in the blood, still warm, of the woman who had just been "operated" on. _

"_What are you?" she inquired, proud that she had not cracked yet. Or maybe she had already, and this was just a lurid nightdream, all in her head. _

"_Your teeth are pointed." What a stupid-sounding comment! _

_The man smiled. "Indeed. What is your name, beautiful woman in red?" He leaned in and touched a lock of her fiery hair, which was matted with congealing blood. His hair was also red, even the same shade, but much longer than hers. _

_They spoke as the woman's body cooled in the evening air. After a while Angelina began to laugh, a shrill sound, like a train that had lost its brakes and could not stop its engine. Grell Sutcliffe watched, and soon joined her in her mirth. His laugh sounded just like hers.

* * *

  
_

Yes, the next time Angelina saw her nephew's guardian, she understood completely. She had once thought to herself that those red eyes were more suited to a fire-breathing being like the Acheron, eating the condemned as they fell beneath the earth, and she realized that she had not been that far from the truth. Now she knew, and knew that more existed than what was inside the meager realm of peoples' supposed reality.

Humans had to abide by human rules, and had to accept what is logical as a human. Other things, things that she had not known about before…they did not.

End.


End file.
